The Once and Future Thing
"' Part One: Weird Western Tales'" and "' Part Two: Time, Warped'" are the twelfth and thirteenth episode of Justice League Unlimited. It first aired on January 22 and January 29th, 2005. Plot Part I: Western Weird Tales In the Batman Beyond future of Gotham City, Enid Clinton scolds her husband, David Clinton, about clogging up the garage with his collection of historical artifacts. Timidly, he tries to explain their importance: they are originals that he retrieved from their respective time periods, using a time machine he built. Enid's initial amazement turns to fury, and she delivers an even more blistering scolding, saying that he could have used the machine to make them rich and powerful instead. "You invent a time machine and can't think of anything useful to do with it?!" He shoots back, "I can think of one thing!" and activates his machine, disappearing into a time portal. In the present day, Batman and John Stewart are lunching in the Watchtower's commissary. Though Shayera Hol has rejoined the League, John denies any awkwardness, claiming he's moved on and is now seeing Vixen. Shortly after Wonder Woman joins them, an intruder alarm sounds. The three of them find David trying to steal one of Batman's utility belts. He escapes into a time portal, and they follow. They arrive in the middle of the Oklahoma Territory in 1879. After turning the tables on a trio of highwaymen, they adopt cowboy clothes and ride into the nearest town, Elkhorn. Right away they see what is wrong: the new "sheriff," Tobias Manning and his thugs are equipped with radically advanced weapons. After losing a hand of poker, Manning throws his opponent in jail. The League go to break him out, and he introduces himself as Bartholomew Aloysius Lash, a.k.a. Bat Lash. His cell mate is David, who explains that Manning stole his time machine and has been using it to poach advanced technology from the future and make himself ruler of the town. As they leave the jail, they are attacked by Manning's thugs, who are overcome by a sort of Wild West Justice League, to which Bart belongs: Jonah Hex, El Diablo, and Ohiyesa Smith, the former sheriff of Elkhorn. Banding together, the new and old Leagues travel to Manning's headquarters in the desert; his men confront them with an arsenal of bizarre weapons, including robotic dinosaurs, main battle tanks, and android exoskeletons. They overcome his men, and Smith personally bests Manning in a knife fight. Freed, David snatches the time belt away and disappears into another portal. Again, Batman, John, and Wonder Woman follow him. This time, they arrive in the future Gotham City and are immediately confronted by the Jokerz: Bonk, Chucko, Dee Dee, Ghoul, and Woof. They are soon joined by that era's Justice League Unlimited: Terry McGinnis, Static, and Warhawk. As they square off against the Jokerz, Warhawk catches sight of John and says, "Dad?" Part Two: Time, Warped In the Batman Beyond era, the Jokerz have been "upgraded" with cybernetic weapons that are advanced even for that time, and the combined Leaguers have no choice but to retreat. They return to Terry's abandoned old highschool, which serves as a sort of impromptu Batcave, to meet the final League member: the aged Bruce Wayne. Warhawk introduces himself as Rex Stewart, the future son of John Stewart and Shayera Hol. They explain that Clinton has made himself a warlord in his own time (like Tobias Manning did in the Wild West), now calling himself "Lord Chronos". In his previous time travels, he had been careful about not disrupting history. Now he has abandoned that restraint, poaching technology from the future and historical monuments from the past, all to transform Gotham into his personal kingdom. The Watchtower, and most of this era’s Justice League was destroyed years ago. As a result of Chronos's recklessness, serious disruptions in the space-time continuum have begun. To Batman’s horror, Wonder Woman fades away in mid-sentence; now it’s like she was never even born. There are even signs that the universe itself is moving towards entropy. The combined League captures and interrogates Ghoul. Thanks to old man Wayne, Ghoul says Chronos moves around each night, never staying in the same place – but he knows where his wife sleeps. In the middle of their search, John Stewart phases out and is replaced by Hal Jordan, who says calmly, "I'm up to speed. Carry on." A short while later, Hal fades away and John comes back. The League confronts Enid, staying in a pyramid (poached either from ancient Egypt or Las Vegas). She is as contemptuous of her husband as before, though now she is also afraid of him. She says that his moving around is a myth, he always stays in the same place. Ironically, that place is the Elkhorn town jail (where he had stayed for six months) and planted it in the middle of the Coliseum apparently, it’s the place where he feels safest. Chronos wakes and summons the Jokerz; in the ensuing battle, Static is sucked into a suddenly-appearing time portal, and Terry is killed by Dee Dee. As Woof was about to kill Warhawk, John Stewart saves his son at the last minute. As the universe itself starts to collapse, Chronos disappears into another time portal. Lantern and Batman follow, and see he is now heading to the Beginning of Time, which will enable him to re-write the history of the entire universe. As they hurtle towards the source, they catch up with Chronos and Batman plugs in a program he’s written to “de-bug” his time machine and its effects. They are still heading towards the source… when Batman and Lantern open their eyes and find themselves in the Watchtower cafeteria. Wonder Woman joins them, having no memory of what they’ve done. Lantern and Batman are the only ones who remember what happened. Lantern sees Shayera, and remembers what Warhawk said about his parentage. Lantern asks, what about Chronos. Batman, smiling, says he re-programmed the belt to ensure that Chronos would never come to exist… In the future, Enid delivers the same scolding she did before; as before, David angrily activates his belt to get away from her – and jumps back in time to a few seconds ago, at the beginning of Enid’s scolding, over and over again. Cast References to other DC Animated Universe shows * It’s possible that Batman recognizes Jonah Hex's name, having heard his story from Ra's al Ghul in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Showdown." * In "Showdown," which takes place in 1883, only four years after the part one episode, Hex seems to have aged several decades. One possible reason for this is he continued his time-traveling adventures. * Warhawk first appears in the Batman Beyond episode, "The Call." His parentage is not explained in that episode. * The Jokerz who appear in this episode first appeared in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Early in that movie, Bonk is killed by The Joker as an example to the others. However, this is one of many things that could have been changed by Chronos in his time-travels. * This is Hal Jordan's only appearance in the DC Animated Universe. Background Information Trivia * The title is a pun on "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White. * "Weird Western Tales" was a DC Comics series that featured many of the DC Universe's western character's adventures. * The first episode features a Western-style rendition of the original Justice League theme. * Both episodes are thematically very similar to "The Savage Time", the Justice League Season One finale. In that episode, the League travels back in time to World War II, and finds history altered because of technology contributed from the future, and also finds itself assisted by a host of DC Comics heroes created for that era. * Likewise, in the first episode, the Wild West Justice League is composed of heroes from DC Comics' series of comics taking place in that era: Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, El Diablo, and Sheriff Ohiyesa Smith (Pow Wow Smith). * Tobias Manning is better known in the DC Comics universe as Terra-Man. * This story has a strong similarity to the 1994 DC Comics miniseries called "Zero Hour." There are also slight similarities to the 1986 maxieseries Crisis On Infinite Earths. * Chucko's chief weapon is a double-bladed lightsaber identical to the one carried by Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I. * Justice League era Batman looking down at future Gotham City in Part 2 mirrors when Batman Beyond era Batman (Terry McGinnis) looking down at the same view and angle as in the episode "Bloodsport." * The monuments stolen by Chronos seen during the part 2 episode are: ** Jupiter of Smyrna **The Trojan Horse **Two Moai Statues **The Leaning Tower of Pisa **The Titanic **The Parthenon **The Great Sphinx Category:Justice League (TV series) episodes Category:DC animated universe episodes Category:Crossover television Category:Time travel television episodes Category:Batman Beyond Category:2005 television episodes